Individuals having difficulty swallowing tablets and capsules usually prefer chewable, quick-dissolving or liquid dosage forms. Oftentimes, however, the pharmaceutical actives incorporated into such dosage forms have a strong bitter taste. This is particularly true where pharmaceutical actives containing amine or amido groups or salts thereof are concerned. Aesthetic qualities such as taste and after-taste are important concerns for user acceptability. Products with poor flavor, bad after-taste or other negative aesthetics may limit overall user acceptability initially and over an extended period of time, eventually limit usage and compliance.
Sweeteners and flavors, along with various diluents, have been used as excipients or fillers in an attempt to minimize or mask such unpleasant or bitter tastes (or after-tastes). More recently, however, the focus has shifted to coating or structural matrix forms of taste masking. Compositions employing such technology have incorporated agents such as silicate clays, U.S. Pat. No. 3,140,978 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,581,232; acrylic acid copolymers, U.S. Pat. No. 5,286,489; gums, U.S. Pat. No. 5,288,500; and waxes in an effort to further provide improved tasting pharmaceutical compositions.
There still remains, however, a need for additional pharmaceutical compositions incorporating unpleasant tasting pharmaceutical actives which provide improved taste masking of the unpleasant tasting pharmaceutical active. The present inventor has discovered that the compositions of the present invention with at least one unpleasant tasting pharmaceutical active and which contain an aloe vera component provide improved tasting, orally administered, pharmaceutical compositions.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide improved tasting, oral compositions. It is a further object of the present invention to provide improved tasting compositions containing at least one pharmaceutically active ingredient. A still further object of the present invention is to provide a method of reducing or abating the symptoms associated with the common cold, respiratory disorders, gastrointestinal disorders and allergies using improved tasting compositions containing at least one pharmaceutically active ingredient. A still even further object of the present invention is to provide a method of making improved tasting, quick dissolving, freeze (or vacuum) dried compositions containing at least one pharmaceutically active ingredient.